Journal of Research in Music Education

Heitor Villa-Lobos, Brazil's most famous composer, was also an ardent nationalist. On returning to his own country from Europe in 1930, he designed and organized a nationwide program of music education with a strong emphasis on Brazilian identity and solidarity. Its distinguishing element was the use of canto orfeônico, a technique of mass a capella singing in which the pitches are indicated by the conductor's hands. Despite the prevailing partiality to soccer, Villa-Lobos managed to stage several massive exhibitions and rallies stressing this style of singing, which in 1946 was made obligatory in all Brazilian schools. As head of the Superintendência de Educação Musical e Artística, Villa-Lobos supervised the education of a whole generation of Brazilian music teachers, stressing music as a shaper of national character. The survival of canto orfeônico through the many vicissitudes of Brazilian politics attests to the soundness of Villa-Lobos' original conception.

The purpose of the study was to determine the differential influence of a supervisory process based on constructs derived from the Withall Social-Emotional Climate Index on verbal behavior patterns exhibited by student teachers of music, their ability to engage in objective self-assessment, and the effect of such activity on the students' percepts of teacher-role ideology. The results indicated that: (1) student teachers of music appear not to be predisposed to the employment of learner-centered instructional behavior; (2) student teachers of music can be sensitized to the employment of both learner-centered and teacher-centered verbal patterns in accordance with the purpose and nature of the instruction being provided; and (3) verbal behavior analysis supervision tends to encourage objective self-assessment and provides a functional and commonly defined basis for the systematic improvement of teaching performance.

It was the purpose of this study to determine whether trumpet performances adjudicated by a group of seven competent brass specialists are rated differently from the same performances adjudicated by a similar group of nonbrass specialists. Its purpose also was to determine whether the performances are rated differently when the same judges were reassigned to judge groups as wind specialists and nonwind specialists. The trait terms used by the judges included intonation, rhythm, interpretation, technique, and overall. The results showed no significant differences for any of the traits when brass judges were compared with nonbrass judges. One trait, technique, was found to be rated significantly different when wind judges were compared with nonwind judges. In addition, technique was also found to be the most distinct trait when the groups of judges were combined into a single judge group and the five rated traits were intercorrelated.

EEG waves were recorded while subjects were to remember a given reference tone and later identify it as a part of a series of neighboring pitches. Each of the four reference tones was surrounded by pitches of increasingly smaller intervallic range. The results indicated a slightly greater amount of alpha desynchronization during discrimination of pitches at the two more difficult levels.

Seventy-two subjects drawn from six age groups clapped a notated rhythmic example while attempting to maintain a tempo given by metronome calibrated to 90 beats per minute. The example contained three sections that were counterbalanced to control for order. Section A of the example contained twelve beats of half notes, section B contained twelve beats of quarter notes, and section C contained twelve beats of eighth notes. Three forms of the example (ABC, BCA, and CAB) were randomly assigned to subjects. Dependent variable data consisted of the number of seconds required to perform each section of the rhythmic example. Seconds, measured to the nearest .01 second, were converted into beats per minute and expressed as deviation scores. No significant differences were produced among the three sections containing different notational values or among age groups of subjects. Significant differences were produced on order of presentation, indicating that performance tempo increased throughout the example. It was concluded that subjects evidenced a tendency to increase tempo during a clapped performance of a rhythmic example.